Anglo-Saxon England and the wider world
Culture
Evidence
Language (Runes give way to Roman script; Latin continues as linqua franca).
Literature (Libraries. The gift of books.)
Dream of the Rood: poem inspired by a devotional current which originated in Byzantium, but written in the idiom of insular heroic poetry with Christ as a courageous and victorious king and all created things his liegemen. Elene: Helen’s discovery of the True Cross.
The Acts of the Apostles, Andrew, Matthew, Bartholomew, etc.
Beowulf, Christianised version of Scandinavian epic.
Visual arts (Influence of the eastern Mediterranean).
Inhabited vine-scroll motif found on the Ruthwell cross and on a panel in the monastery at Jarrow has been traced to Armenian prototypes.
Standing Annunciation on the Ruthwell cross paralleled only in Syria.
Durham Gospel fragment, mid- to later-seventh century. Interlace patterns are from Egyptian Coptic and/or Byzantine-Italian exemplars.
Book of Durrow, c. 675. Carpet pages: either Oriental, or perhaps inspired by Roman mosaic pavements. Page portraits of the Evangelists echo a Persian manuscript of the Diatessaron of Tatian, perhaps brought to Iona by Arculf, a pilgrim who had visited Jerusalem. These are then copied in the Gospel Book of St Willibrord. Also Pictish influence, as in Lion of St John, with its voluted design.
Lindisfarne Gospels, said made by Eadfrith of Lindisfarne, bishop, c.690. Feasts include St Januarius, a saint of Naples, so suggestive of a southern Italian origin. Text in two columns, suggestive of late antique Italian examplar. Late antique model for portrait of St Matthew at his writing desk - relates to a picture of the prophet Ezra in the Codex Ammantianus. Details in carpet page: geometric design from Persia, interlace from Egypt, and at the same time, Celtic features such as the spiral motifs and hanging bowls like those found at Tara in Ireland. The colours include kermes, a red obtained from an insect that lives in kermes oaks in the Mediterranean, and ultramarine blue, or lapis lazuli, obtained only from a single mine in Afghanistan.
Codex Aureus of Canterbury: Late Antique, Mediterranean models. Much use of gold and, in St Boniface’s Gospel Book, chrysography, gold lettering on a purple background. The height of sumptuousness, and use of imperial colours.
Architecture (Basilican churches, at first on the Roman model, later on the Ottonian, that is the style in Germany under the emperor Otto and his successors). (Destro's note: The Ottonians were half "Byzantine" by marriage and birth)
Using Frankish masons and glaziers, Benedict Biscop built his church at Monkwearmouth in a distinctly Mediterranean style, plastered in and out, with a cement floor finished in pounded red brick. He made no less than five journeys to Rome to amass books and relics to enrich his monasteries.
Church music
Chant is generally ascribed to Gregory the Great, though this may not be strictly accurate. Music at the monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow had been taught by ‘the chief cantor of St Peter’s’.
Belief (saints’ cults, pilgrimage)
Monastic ideals had come from Egypt, via Marmoutier and Lerins, the early monasteries in Gaul. After the renewal of Frankish monasticism through the agency of Irish monks, Anglo-Saxon noblewomen in particular were sent to study at Frankish houses such as Luxeuil.
Devotion to the Virgin (see picture in Book of Kells).
Ecclesiastics (including teachers, administrators, monks, and academics). Theodore of Tarsus, the aged monk who was sent by Pope Vitalian to be Archbishop of Canterbury, was born, as his name indicates, in what is now south-east Turkey and had studied at Edessa. He is credited with the introduction to England of the Litany, a rehearsal of the names of saints coupled with pleas for their intercession, which was a feature of the Greek liturgy. His pupil, Oftfor, bishop of Worcester, may have been particularly well travelled in an age when clerics were expected to make at least one journey to Rome: his name means ‘oft-farer’, the one who has travelled many times.
Even though the surviving Roman emperor in Constantinople (Byzantium) ceased to have direct involvement in affairs in western Europe, he was still revered and due respect and honour was accorded to him. The Gothic, Frankish and Burgundian kings vied for official positions surviving from the undivided empire: appointments such as magister militum, Master of the Military, that is Commander of the Army. The emperor in Byzantium often conferred the Consulship on them. These kings, in turn, did not address their subordinates as kings, even though powerful subordinates had as much power as they.
Final case studies
I should like to end by offering two Mercian case studies: one secular, focused on the court of King Offa, and the other ecclesiastical, focused on the court of St Wilfrid.
Offa
Breedon: Mediterranean vine-leaves and a Byzantine-influenced Mary, alongside Germanic beasts.
Offa’s coin portrait imitates the Roman emperors. His wife, Cynefryth, was the only Anglo-Saxon queen to have coins minted in her name. She may have been imitating the empress Helena, mother of Constantine. More likely, perhaps, she was imitating the Byzantine empress Irene, who had recently had coins struck in her name - and Irene may have been recalling the coins of Helena. Both women were claiming, by their coins, a special status for the royal consort.
St Andrew (Hedda Stone)
He moved in an international world. Was adopted by the archbishop of a town on his way to Rome.
He adopted Andrew as his patron perhaps in honour of Gregory the Great, who had founded the monastery of St Andrew at Rome where Augustine of Canterbury was Gregory’s prior.
Andrew, nevertheless, was attractive to the English for another reason: his extraordinary adventures in the legendary account of his missionary activities among the monstrous races beyond the Black Sea. His name means, in Greek, ‘First Man’.